I’m beginning to think that I do.<\/p>\n
When writing a recent blog post, I realized that I referred to my great-great-grandmother in two different ways:<\/p>\n
It was not just a typographical error. There are documents that refer to her name as Noentjelena and others that refer to her name as Noentje Lena. When I’m transcribing a record on her the transcription needs to be true to the record. But when I am discussing her in general (as I was in the blog post) I need to use a consistent spelling of her name. That’s why I think I need a style guide for ancestral names.<\/p>\n
And really that style guide needs to be specific to the individual-not to the name in general. I may have another relative with the “name” Noentjelena who consistently uses a form different from my great-great-grandmother. The problem is more pronounced in my low-German families who were immigrants as they have their low-German name and, in some cases, their Anglicized name. Some immigrants may have even used slightly different versions of their first name that were “non-Anglicized.”<\/p>\n
It’s not just my low-Germans for whom I have this problem. Sarah (Tinsley) Sledd of Amherst County, Virginia, and Nicholas and Fleming Counties in Kentucky is sometimes style as Sally Sledd. This is a well-known diminutive. However, for consistency, I usually refer to her as Sally. At least I hope that I have.<\/p>\n
I always refer to my great-grandmother Neill with a first name of Fannie. Francis was her first name, but it’s used on only one record ever: her birth certificate.<\/p>\n
And then there is Elam Blaine. I still haven’t figured out how to refer to him.<\/p>\n
But I need to pick one way and stick with it to be used when writing about the individual. Records should be transcribed exactly as they are written—but discussions are best done using one consistent spelling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m beginning to think that I do. When writing a recent blog post, I realized that I referred to my great-great-grandmother in two different ways: Noentjelena Grass Noentje Lena Grass It was not just a typographical error. There are documents that refer to her name as Noentjelena and others that refer to her name as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}